Collingwood, Melbourne for Ladies
Melbourne is the world’s fourth most liveable city of 2025, partly because of its charming shops for women. Collingwood is full of them. Here are six essential shops in Collingwood to visit.
The World’s Favourite Tweed
The World’s Favourite Tweed Scotland’s Harris Tweed is the best-loved, most famous brand in the world, exported from the Outer Hebrides to France and Japan. If you’re weekend shopping at car boot sales, garage sales and charity shops, sooner or later, you’ll find a Harris Tweed jacket on the rack, instantly recognisable from Peaky Blinders […]
The Best Breton Top
Chanel, Yves St Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld made the Breton top famous, but how can you buy the best one today – and why is it still a wardrobe staple for French men and women?
Brigitte Bardot’s Repetto Classics
Bardot’s ballet shoes worn with Capri pants, fishnet tights or carried in her hand – are still the favourite luxury brand of many French women. Many have copied, but few come close…
Chanel’s Paris Tea Room
Chanel’s Paris Tea Room by Jennifer Johnson Angelina is known primarily for its hot chocolate and Mont Blanc super-cake – but also for being Chanel’s Paris tea room of choice – and where Vivienne Westwood launched herself. There’s More to Angelina… Before 2021, the most controversial thing that had ever happened at Angelina in Paris […]
Second-hand Hermes Scarf Secrets by Jennifer Johnson
It takes 37 km of silk, spun by Bombyx Mori worms, to produce enough for one Hermes scarf. That’s one of the reasons they are so costly. Buy secondhand and you can reduce the cost by one half, to one third. What are the secrets to know, though?
Fabulous French Dressing Past Fifty
French women don’t date (and don’t grow old) the way everyone else does. Jennifer Johnson looks at the rules commonly followed by Ines and other French style icons.
Mod Brighton in Modern Brighton
Holiday Goddess Jessica Adams shares some insider tips about Brighton, home of the Mods and the setting for the movie Quadrophenia.
The Best Gloves in the World
The best glove makers in the world use old-fashioned sewing machines in East Sussex. This is the small Cornelia James empire, who have held a Royal Warrant since 1979.
Exploring the Small Shops of Brisbane
Shop small, shop local and shop with curiosity. Here are some of Holiday Goddess favourite northside, southside and in-between bijoux Brisbane boutiques for hand-selected vintage, gifts and trinkets.
Thrifting the Light Fantastic: Fashion Tours with a Conscious
One of the best things about shopping with Marguerite was she got me looking at clothes and accessories in new ways. There was a gold belt with a buckle that featured a frog on a lily pond found at Vinnies. Marguerite suggested wearing the belt as a necklace (which I’ve since done).
Vivier: the Queen’s Shoe Designer
The Queen was the Frenchman’s most famous client, but this gifted creator (who gave us the stiletto heel) also produced shoes for Jackie Kennedy and Elizabeth Taylor – and The Beatles.